Hamad S. Aldosari, Ph.D. Associate ProfessorHead, English DepartmentCollege of Languages & TranslationKing Khalid University 

 

An interacultural perspective on teaching and learning EFL in a Saudi university 

What is culture?Culture means to gain extensive knowledge of a particular

community of people living in a particular area of land.

The big-C genre of culture is usually easy to explore, as it

constitutes all the factual knowledge about fine arts in a

particular human community such as literature, music, dance,

painting, sculpture, theater, and film. The small-c culture, on the

other hand, comprises a wide variety of aspects, many of which

are inter-connected, including attitudes, assumptions, beliefs,

perceptions, norms and values, social relationships, customs,

celebrations, rituals, politeness conventions, patterns of

interaction and discourse organization, the use of time in

communication, and the use of physical space and body

language.

Culture & LanguageIncorporating target culture knowledge

in EFL learning and teaching is essential

in the second/foreign language

classroom in general because language,

as Willems (1998) pointed out,

maintains culture and culture produces

language.

Integrating culture in the language

classroom through teaching English

literature can be understood as

important and necessary.

The present studyThis study aims at identifying the impediments that

hinder culture teaching as embedded in the

teaching of English literature to EFL students in

Saudi Arabian universities as perceived by a

sample of teachers and students. Therefore, the

problem object of the study can be expressed in

the following research question:

 What are the attitudes of faculty and students in

the English Department of the College of

Languages and Translation, King Khalid University

(KKU), Abha, towards culture-embedded literature

teaching?

Research MethodThe method of research deemed appropriate for this study was

the descriptive method, using a questionnaire.

In order to explore the perceptions of and attitudes towards

culture in the classroom and the teaching of English literature, as

perceived by language instructors and students in the English

department, College of Languages and Translation, King Khalid

University, a questionnaire (in two formats, one for teachers and

the other adapted for students) was designed to elicit instructors

and students’ views on three major aspects identified in relevant

literature: (1) feelings about both the importance of teaching

culture and literature in EFL classrooms; (2) perceptions about

culture in the current literature curriculum; and (3) inhibitors and

impediments to EFL literature teaching in Saudi universities.

FindingsFirst, teachers indicated that novels,

short stories, and drama are the major

genres of creative writing that can best

depict a particular culture in a given

language; as such, informants, from

amongst teachers, indicated that these

genres have to be extensively included

in the English literature component of

the BA programme in the college.

Findings ….Students indicated that novels and

stories are extensively loaded with

culture, and they ought to study many

of these courses across the language

curriculum, in lieu of the intensive skills

courses they are immersed in.

Findings …Given that teachers and students believe that

culture should be there in the EFL curriculum,

still they all believed that enough culture was

taught in the language curriculum and the

current literature curriculum is not adequate to

provide an appropriately balanced quantity of

culture learning; they indicated that even some

of the literature courses have been tuned to

address Islamic topics, such a course titled

'Islam in World Literature', which cannot be

claimed as teaching the English culture.

Findings …Nearly half the informants do not agree that the barriers cited are deemed

inhibitive impediments except for item 12, addressing availability of material and

teaching technology, such as video and audio clips. They think so because (1)

some courses do not give them the opportunity to use drama video clips for

introducing the target culture to the students in attractive formats, (2) literary

texts available cannot be integrated with audio-video material easily due to time

constraints in the classroom as well as lack of lab facilities, (3) teachers do not

incorporate video clips available with these courses due to native cultural

barriers, mostly associated with religious or socio-religious factors; and, finally,

(4) the literature course instructors do not provide their students with

supplementary material (e.g. texts, graphics, advance organisers, audio, video,

etc.) that integrate culture and literature learning.

Findings …In addition, informants perceived the following factors as inhibitors and

impediments to integrating culture within English literature teaching in KKU

in the following order according to the perceptions of the informants as

determined by Chi2 and weighted percents:

• lack of enough native-language speakers on the teaching staff;

• lack of time and adequate material covering overt and covert cultural

aspects within literary texts;

• socio-cultural and religious factors;

• lack of teaching technology enabling culture learning in classrooms.

Conclusions …It can be concluded that EFL instructors and

students in Saudi Arabia already recognize the

important role that literature can play in culture

learning in EFL classes. Identifying the importance

of literature in the conveyance of culture is

commensurate with prior research which can be

implicitly or directly can be used to acculturate EFL

learners into the English language culturre.

RecommendationsEFL instructors need to integrate cultural

information as part of their language teaching,

since it appears to be introduced more randomly

than other aspects of their teaching. The reason

is that there is no overt, explicit courses in

developing cultural awareness in the EFL

programme in ELT colleges, except for a

language awareness course, which taps into

cultural technical terminology without delving

deep beyond the introduction of cultural terms.

Suggested research in culture teaching requires that more adapted research on large-sized samples be conducted. Both non-native English-speaking instructors and ESL instructors may express different views about the teaching of culture which could prove useful for either model-building or textbook authors and publishers, which requires an orientation towards reconsidering the TEFL course-texts available in Saudi Arabia. Thus, teachers by using literature teaching derived from the different varieties of English (e.g., American, British, Australian, New Zealandish, South African, etc.) within language learning curriculum more than it is being used will lead EFL students to understand more effectively the representations of the different English cultures to be found in these varied literary texts, and will induce them to achieve higher levels of multicultural literacy, which makes them more effective intercultural communicators.

Further research is also required to verify whether there is a direct nexus between openness to cultural and linguistic patterns and the ability to learn a second or foreign language. Such a link could take on special significance at a time when the nature of intercultural competence is receiving widespread international attention.

Future research directions